Alone in America and desperate, she had already scheduled the abortion when her mom swooped in to fix everything, as moms often do. As moms are — impossibly — expected to do.
“She said ‘No, after you give birth, you can send her back to France. You can stay and finish your studies,’” Ikias said, remembering the way her mother persuaded her to keep the child, the girl who would carry an Americanized version of her name, Angelique-Rose.
She prepared for the arrival of her baby, then her mom, planning on intergenerational help, even across an ocean. But on the day Angee-Rose was born, Grandma had a stroke.
The young mother and her newborn struggled, using friends’ couches and spare rooms. “I wanted my mom for advice. What is healthy? How should I be doing all this?” she remembered.
The thought of returning to France to bring Angee-Rose to her grandmother propelled her through some lean months spent saving and planning.
She got the baby’s passport in order. Days before she was to leave, her mother died.
“My mother was my only support,” Ikias said at a fancy dinner this week honoring her accomplishments since those days of couch-surfing with a newborn. “After her death, I lost everything.”
Aside from the kinds of family members who are nearby and able to help — or wealth unimaginable for most of us — there is little support for new moms in America, where abortion and even contraception is quickly becoming inaccessible and even illegal, state by state.
As politicians run campaigns and bask in applause for restricting women’s rights to control their bodies — and their lives — the support that goes into raising all those babies they want to save is rarely considered, let alone discussed and planned.
Beyond the plan to rely on her mother, Ikias didn’t comprehend the struggle she was facing in the land where she sought freedom and opportunity. Asking people for help was difficult for her in the early days. With no family nearby, she had to become the mother she needed.
“Being a mom has taught me infinite love, strength, empathy and sacrifice. A lot of sacrifice,” she said. “I have grown from things that were meant to break me.”
A breaking point came when the friend she was living with became engaged and would need to start a new life without a single mom and her baby in tow. At that point, Ikias had run out of friends to crash with.
Ikias started looking for shelters that would take them. She found one in Hyattsville, just past the D.C. border, a small, quiet space that has been here for single moms since the Civil War.
I met Ikias at that place — St. Ann’s Center for Children, Youth and Families — a year ago. She and Angee-Rose had a large room, half of it decorated in a riot of pink. At first, her goals were simple: Stability, shelter, food.
“When we moved to St. Ann’s, that was the first time my daughter had a bed,” Ikias said. They spent two years there, working toward independence, with a staff of people, in-house day care, groceries, classes, counseling. Kindness. Patience. The ability — the luxury — to hope.
“My dream for my daughter is for her to be successful at whatever she chooses to do in life,” Ikias said. “I want her to overcome any obstacle that comes her way, I want her to gain independence and confidence to be all she can be.”
Today, Ikias is working in a bank. She bought her first car — a Buick. (“I got it at an auction. It was cheap.”) She took finance classes and is about to resume her college studies. Angee-Rose is about to graduate from preschool and enter kindergarten. They moved into an apartment. She’s saving up to buy a house.
They even went to Disney World. (“I got really good discounts from my work.”)
Thoughts and prayers didn’t do this. Government assistance alone didn’t do this. One solid program didn’t do the trick. It was people who believed in her, didn’t judge her, who understood the enormous ripples that follow helping one woman survive — and thrive.
“I’m so glad that I have a lot of them — a lot of mothers — around,” Ikias said.
“There’s Miss Janet, Miss Paulette, Miss Monique, Miss Gayle, Miss O’Neal, Sister Mary, Mike, Miss Keisha,” she said, naming the people who not only did their jobs — like the workers at St. Ann’s — but supported her, completely.
Like the bank manager who came to the St. Ann’s Hope Blossoms gala to watch her speak, who made sure she got medical care when she was sick. Like the day-care staffer who knows exactly what Angee-Rose needs, like the worker who stopped to help Ikias when she became overwhelmed and burst into tears trying to get her green card paperwork in order.
Mother’s Day will be spent with as many of them as possible.
Ikias is applying for American citizenship, leaving behind her place in the European Union, where her mother brought her family from the Republic of Congo for a better life.
“America, they say it’s the country of dreams,” she said. “I don’t think in France I would be able to work in a bank as Black and African. Here, I see Black women in the news, in big positions. In France, it is not like that for Africans.”
Here, Ikias has had a dizzying two years, from living in a shelter to working in a bank.
Standing before the crowd at the Columbia Country Club on Wednesday night, she offered a message to other struggling moms undertaking “one of the most difficult challenges a woman can take in her life”: “Accept help when needed. And … always put your children first.”